G8- That much I do agree with, nothing gets you into fighting shape like fighting. You just cant expect to fight all the time, so there has to be some solution that attempts to meet the demands of fighting. If JFS has such a solution, I would love to hear about it.

There was an interesting (to me, anyway) article in a recent "Grappling" magazine that pretty much validates JFS's thesis, at least in regards cardio. The authors were physiologists working in conjunction with trainers at one of the leading MMA centers (might have been Militech's, I'm not sure). Their contention, in short, was that because the body has a multi-level system for replenishing energy, cardio training that does not closely replicate the demands of a specific scenario is more or less useless--i.e. all the road work in the world will not do ****-all to improve your fight cardio; because road work involves and builds an entirely separate muscular/energy-exchange system, it will make you a better runner and help you make weight, but it won't keep you from gassing in the ring or on the mat. Instead, they advocate a fairly complex routine of intense interval training designed to resemble a real MMA fight as much as possible. I'd post a link, but I can't remember enough of the specifics to turn one up.
As to whether it's helpful to train beyond the point of exhaustion--this may be a little off topic, inasmuch as it involves much finer motor skills than most any MA, but I've spent years playing and practicing the guitar, and most every authority will tell you (and I can affrim) that the best way to make progress as a player is to build from precise, letter-perfect movements in small increments, progressing from slow to fast only so far as you can execute the movements perfectly. Playing faster than you are capable of is absolutely counterproductive, as is playing with excess tension or fatigue. Half an hour of intense, perfect practice a day will make you better in a hurry; "playing till your fingers bleed" and you get sloppy will ingrain bad habits and insure that you don't improve. I understand the massive difference of context, but I think the same principles probably apply.

Sorry to derail the incipient online gong sau.

Way cool post. I'll be putting up some URLs when this thread winds down that deal with energy demands and transference of training - practice protocols that should be a real eye opener for at least some peeps. Lo and behold the god of close to target activity drills is in fact a demon.

G8- That much I do agree with, nothing gets you into fighting shape like fighting. You just cant expect to fight all the time, so there has to be some solution that attempts to meet the demands of fighting. If JFS has such a solution, I would love to hear about it. J

Of course I have "a" solution ... as do many people. If I had "the" solution then I would be a very rich Man. Fact is, there is no "the" solution.

Develop a baseline that you think meets your needs - activity demands and then slowly scale back the amount of total work you did to develop this baseline so that you maintain said baseline.

It has nothing to do with Pathogens. The goal is to open a cut on someones face preferably above the eye. This causes them to bleed into their eyes or their facial tissue around the eye swells. Both result in the same goal, a blinded fighter.

Muay Thai has several elbow techniques specifically for cutting the scalp above the eyes and blinding the opponent quickly.

They stop fights when you bleed into your eyes because you can't see **** and you will be KTFO in short order.

Ah, I see. That makes sense. You learn something new every day! :toothy6:

Appropriate equipment used "correctly" is good used any other way it is counter-productive.

The research and figures most fitness/equipment companies use and the statements they make are almost completely based around arbitrary fitness - BMI, Body Fat percentage, specific activity fitness (running, rowing etc) and are not useful as baseline information for martial arts as a specifc activity.

What I am finding most interesting is that this seems to validate a lot of the old methods of training as far as fighting goes - wing chun dummies aside, and in many ways the "modern" seem to be the child of the couch potato era where most peoples primary reason for any physical activity is weight loss or control.

What JFSUSA is saying is starting to make sense to me, its just taking a while to dissect what we do in training and see where and what applies.

The example JFS used of the newbie working on the heavy bag, and the diminishing returns to target activity made sense to me.

JFS is this the sort of thing you are saying:

Newbie works on basic formal technique. Due to lack of prior learning transfer to target activity is decent as gross motor skills are lacking.
Bag work is the same - building gross motor function at this point.
The newbie in question will see an improvement in their sparring due to the basics and bag work.

Shoot forward in time - gross motor skills have been obtained. Bag work and formal basics (as opposed to fluid or shadow boxing type basics) now lack transference to target activity as the gross skills are present and fine tuning is needed. At this point the focus shifts to more partner work aimed at transfer of the bag/basic skills to a humna (likely padded or light contact).

Further forward when (if) decent proficiency is obtained the light work and padded opponent have less transference as you have the skills to target a moving and resisting human. Now in order to counteract the vastly diminishing returns you will primarily only make (decent) progress from hard contact fully resisting sparring.

Implementation of more specific stimuli earlier is better as it skips the middle phase provided the skill set is high enough to make serious injury unlikely.

Equipemt is useful as an adjunct to training (being not prone to injury and there whenever you need it) but needs to be kept in its place as something that fills the spaces when you can't find a person to do it for you.

Incidentally why do you prefer to shadow box to work on technique over working a bag - and I mean technique specific working a bag, not working for endurance or exhaustion? I do both but I'm curious as to why you think shadow boxing is preferable as it would seem to be the least transferable activity as the target is ephemeral and there is no resistance.

The "going deep into the well" training to exhaustion thing I completely agree with - mental conditioning wins fights. Nothing like watching the other guys face when he hits you with his best shot and even though you want to die you don't let on. His fighting spirit goes out the window and all he wants is out at that point. I watched a fight where the first punch smashed one guys nose literally past his eye. He then proceeded to kick the **** out of his uninjured opponent as the guy just couldn't get his head around the fact the he was still fighting.

If the context of the transferability of training to real situations can be put in a succint enough fashion (which I am obviously incapable of since I rant too much) it could be a very effective way of crushing the Bullshido points fighters who insist that they are capable in a real scrap.

Newbie works on basic formal technique. Due to lack of prior learning transfer to target activity is decent as gross motor skills are lacking.
Bag work is the same - building gross motor function at this point.
The newbie in question will see an improvement in their sparring due to the basics and bag work.

Very good.

Shoot forward in time - gross motor skills have been obtained. Bag work and formal basics (as opposed to fluid or shadow boxing type basics) now lack transference to target activity as the gross skills are present and fine tuning is needed. At this point the focus shifts to more partner work aimed at transfer of the bag/basic skills to a human (likely padded or light contact).

Good progression.

Further forward when (if) decent proficiency is obtained the light work and padded opponent have less transference as you have the skills to target a moving and resisting human. Now in order to counteract the vastly diminishing returns you will primarily only make (decent) progress from hard contact fully resisting sparring.

Right on point. The context has shifted markedly from your start point and a new paradigm must be created. If a person is brutally honest about it ... the requirements and the criteria of the new paradigm will be manifestly self-evident.

It is at this point in the progression continuum that most fall down. They become enamored with how "good" they are and lapse into to the fatal flaw of spending most of their time - energy doing what they all ready do well. Closed loop ego feeding frenzy.

Implementation of more specific stimuli earlier is better as it skips the middle phase provided the skill set is high enough to make serious injury unlikely.

IMO, true. I give noobs about 30 - 45 days of grace at the most and then build a fire under their ass. Get with it or get the **** gone.

Equipemt is useful as an adjunct to training (being not prone to injury and there whenever you need it) but needs to be kept in its place as something that fills the spaces when you can't find a person to do it for you.

I think that's correct as well. Although, from time to time ... just to infuse a bit of the novelty factor, I enjoy using equipment with a partner. Standing behind a heavy bag and making it move about ... crash and close down the distance as he enters ... pull back hard and away when he sets to fire whatever ... it's fun and of some value.

Incidentally why do you prefer to shadow box to work on technique over working a bag - and I mean technique specific working a bag, not working for endurance or exhaustion? I do both but I'm curious as to why you think shadow boxing is preferable as it would seem to be the least transferable activity as the target is ephemeral and there is no resistance.

As there is no resistance you are able to form "perfect World" structures ... I advocate using a mirror and putting a hyper-critical eye on yourself. This is pure movement specific entrainment and if employed exclusively will result in nothing more than yet another Form Fairie. Too damned many of those things flittering about as is.

Entrainment ... unlike a gas tank on a car does not have to be refilled all that often. If you have done the sweaty, ugly, nasty, hard and often times painful work associated with going against a non-cooperative opponent of the same, or preferably superior, skill level the attending entrainments will hold for quite some time. Just a matter of digging down once in a while and walking through the fire. No "carved in stone" time line for how long the entrainments will hold absent any refreshing. Highly individualistic.

I think if George Foreman would have maintained the same general level of condition - shape he had when he emerged from the Olympics he would be knocking out Contender caliber Heavy Weights to this very day. Yet, even though he blew up like a huge, fat toad, the entrainments held for quite some time as a few young studs discovered.

The "going deep into the well" training to exhaustion thing I completely agree with - mental conditioning wins fights. Nothing like watching the other guys face when he hits you with his best shot and even though you want to die you don't let on. His fighting spirit goes out the window and all he wants is out at that point.

IMO, very true. The mental side of the house rules this World ... but the body likes the attention. The Mind knows the real deal and is comfortable - secure in its role. Therefore, it tends to allow the Physical to show & pose.

I watched a fight where the first punch smashed one guys nose literally past his eye. He then proceeded to kick the **** out of his uninjured opponent as the guy just couldn't get his head around the fact the he was still fighting.

Good stuff and rings real World true. I watched a Karate Kid wannabe take on a Cowboy ... a real Cowboy. The KK had nunchuks fashioned out of heavy steel pipes secured with flexible steel cable. Twirled them very nicely. Cowboy charged in ... took a wicked shot on his raised arm which broke the arm ... rodeo-ed the KK with his one good arm and proceeded to ram him head - face first into a truck until the guy's face disappeared under a most lovely shade of red cascading blood. That Cowboy demonstrated REAL Kung Fu.

If the context of the transferability of training to real situations can be put in a succint enough fashion (which I am obviously incapable of since I rant too much) it could be a very effective way of crushing the Bullshido points fighters who insist that they are capable in a real scrap.

We had a similar thread on another forum that echos this one (that is before some douche bag hacked the site)

According to some of the guys there Karl Gotch (80yr old Old School Catch Wrestler, for those who don't know) has slayed some of the same cows that JFS is doing. Which stemmed from the idea that a wrestler doesn't need to run 5 miles a day to be a better wrestler, he needs to spend more time on the mat actually wrestling.

Some of the points that were echoed in that thread:

Nothing makes you better wrestler than actually wrestling

There are other things you do to improve your overall conditioning that can translate over but are not geared to really improving your game. (ie you are not going to Bench Press anyone in a wrestling match but gaining upper body strength is indeed useful.)

Working to exhaustion is more to build your mental toughness not your skill.

Now, how mnay here get their bell rung on a regular basis? Glancing blows don't count.

Given that I'm (at the moment) usually sparring Kyokushin knockdown rules (bareknuckle so no hand technique to the head) with medium/light contact, when sparring with our Open div fighters I get winded about every 30 seconds and get a smack in the head good enough to neccessitate a pause in the action about half that. Luckily the guys are good enough they coach the whole way through so I'm learning with it.

A well landed punch is going to ring your bell even at half power. It'll just leave you able to keep training in 30 seconds instead of 30 minutes.

Starting at a very good MT/BJJ place in January to help with the weaknesses of Kyokushin. Expect to get my bell rung there just as often. Since there is no personal liability for injury in New Zealand (government covers "sporting" or accidental injuries under ACC) we can probably push the limits more easily without getting sued.

I think if George Foreman would have maintained the same general level of condition - shape he had when he emerged from the Olympics he would be knocking out Contender caliber Heavy Weights to this very day. Yet, even though he blew up like a huge, fat toad, the entrainments held for quite some time as a few young studs discovered.

The last fight I saw him in (think it was his last ever) was vs Shannon Briggs. Briggs won on points but Foreman knocked the crap out of him for the whole fight. Beautiful to see.

Transtasman masters (35+) tournament (Kyokushin run) - a CMA form fairy vs one of our sandans. Fight over by KO in 4 seconds. Like you said, the skills stay a long time. Lots of the guys who fight in our Open div and go to the world tournament are over 35. Hell, one is 5'10" and 150+ kilos - lots of excess weight. Been to the worlds twice and the world superheavyweights in Russia as well. Despite the weight he goes 3x3 minutes at full speed and isn't sweating at the end. Thats activity specific fitness for you.